Category: Sports

Mission No. 2: The successful completion of Twelve-point-five-th Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Piper’s Pub).

As previously mentioned, TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) came down to two teams … and two contestants. If Kansas moved out of the Final Four and won the title, Curl Girl Michelle would have been pregaming July’s Styx show at Post-GazetteFirst NiagaraKeyBank Star Lake with the help of a $50 gift card from our friends at Piper’s.

The other option? A Villanova win, and Jason at Breaking Brews gets to blow that entire fifty bucks at the Piper’s Imperial Breakfast in a couple weeks.

Thanks to my friends at Piper’s for making this thing possible after a year off. Thanks to Mrs. Crappy, who is always willing to give me the time to take care of my AUCNFFC duties. And especially, thanks to you guys for coming back after a hiatus and making this as much fun as it always has been.

And now? Let’s all weep for Jason’s liver as we watch One Shining Moment:

I will say this after calculating the first points in the Twelve-point-five-th Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Piper’s Pub): It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.

I was expecting a figurative bloodbath. What I got instead is a majority of TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) contestants scoring at least a couple points. And I even got two contestants who correctly picked three of the four actual Final Four teams, a thing that I’m going to go ahead and call miraculous this year.

Oh. And there are a few who are ready to receive this year’s first awards. Including me.

But let’s get to the points first.

If you’re on this list, I have good news and bad news. The good news? You scored two points, a remarkable achievement this season. The bad news? You didn’t pick your correct Final Four team to advance, so you’re done.

Sports Chump

Slappy White

Kewyson

Dish

Clumberkid

The Coochie Doctor

Matlock

AJ

Gina and her dog

Scooter

President Obama

This one-person list is for those who correctly picked two Final Four teams but had them both losing in the semis. And that one person is:

Lorenzo

Next up — contestants who picked just one Final Four team correctly, but can earn another four points in the semis. You’re not going to win, but you should be proud of your effort:

Redbuppy

Daria

Pghrugbyref

Calipanthergrl

And then we have contestants who picked just one Final Four team correctly, but can earn another six points if that team wins the title, as they have predicted. An exception effort, but this group can’t catch up with the leaders, even if their points are maxed out.

Otimemore

Carla

JD

One more one-person list, for the guy who picked two Final Four teams but can get just four more points:

Father Spoon

And here’s where it gets interesting. This group picked two Final Four teams correctly, and their picks to win the title are both alive. The bad news: their respective championship picks match those who still have more points, meaning even winning out isn’t going to get them caught up.

Pghrugbyangel

Yay Toast

And then there are two more. These guys are already winners in my book, because picking three of the Final Four teams this year qualifies you as a freaking college basketball savant. And if either Kansas or Villanova wins, I’m pretty sure one of these two will be your TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) champion.

Curl Girl Michelle, who picked Kansas

Breaking Brews, who picked Villanova

And if Michigan or Loyola wins? Good lord, I have no idea. We’ll find out this weekend.

That accounts for all of our distinguished TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) contestants. And, of course, we’re left with the not-so-distinguished TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) contestants, those whose futility was so magnificent that they deserve awards all their own. Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present this year’s Blutarsky Award Winners:

Uncle Crappy

Momsbrain

Susan

HP

Diane the Beer Lady

Juan

For those of you who are still alive, get ready for a crazy weekend ahead. And for those who are not, thank you for playing — I hope, as always, you got your money’s worth.

Remember, TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) contestants don’t start getting points until teams start making the Final Four. Even so, we can still get a pretty good sense of who’s doing OK and who is struggling (a whoooooole bunch of us). Here’s a look, using categories we’ve used in the past:

Holy crap: All. Four. Teams. In. (Team Statistical Anomaly)

Beer lady Diane

Title game, champion and third team in (Big point totals could still be in the future)

Uh, yeah, no

Three teams and champion still in (They didn’t pick the title game correctly, but could still rack up some big points)

Curl Girl Michelle

Breaking Brews

Matlock

Three teams in, champion out (If things go to hell, could still score enough to win)

Sports Chump

Title game and champion in (Gotta be perfect to have a chance)

Otimemore

PghRugbyRef

Two teams and champion in (Not ruling them out, but it’s looking tough)

Redbuppy

PghrugbyrefTwo Final Four teams, one in title game, champ

Otimeore

Susan

AAA

YayToast

Coochie Doctor

AJ

One in Final Four, one in title game, and the champ

Carla

HP

JD

The remaining entries have lost teams ranging from their champion pick to nearly everyone … otherwise known as our 2018 Blutarsky nominees. Listed in order of increasing futility, as in from almost sort of respectible to, uh, not at all. Thank you for playing.

Kewyson

Daria

Clumberkid

Father Spoon

Calipanthergrl

Lorenzo

Dish

Gina and her dog

President Obama

Uncle Crappy

Momsbrain

Scooter

Juan (and Phil’s mom)

Good luck this weekend, everyone. We’ll be back next week with points and probably quite a few Blutarskys.

Sixteen of your Twelve-point-five-th Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Piper’s Pub) contestants had them in the final four.

Seven of us — including yours truly — picked them to win the whole thing.

No, I’m not talking about the UMBC Retrievers — no one had those guys making the Final Four. I’m talking about Virgina, which is now the only No. 1 seed in the history of the men’s tournament to lose to a No. 16.

I mean, it was fun to watch … and then we all remembered what it would do to our brackets.

I guess it’s not too early to start thinking about Blutarsky candidates, huh?

Calipanthergrl, who doesn’t have Pitt or Louisville to cheer for this year:

Houston Virginia Kansas Texas Tech

UVA/Kan

UVA – 123 points

Diane the beer lady:

Kentucky vs Gonzaga
Texas Tech vs Duke

Kentucky vs Duke

Duke 90 over Kentucky 85

My former colleague JD:

Arizona v. Xavier, Nova vs. Mich St.; Arizona vs. Nova; Nova, 83-80

One special guest entry: It recently came to my attention — thanks to Slappy White up there — that Barack Obama is following Uncle Crappy on Twitter. Given our new friendship, I thought I’d invite him to participate in TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) … and that I’d use the picks he posted on Twitter Wednesday to make his entry. If he wins? I mean, how cool would it be to have sausage rolls and Scotch eggs at Piper’s with a former president?

Virginia vs. North Carolina / Villanova vs. Michigan State

Sparty beats the Hoos. We’ll see if we can get a tiebreaker out of him soon.

And finally, we come to Juan, oh he of very little basketball knowledge. Juan’s picks are courtesy of Phil’s Mom once again:

Nevada vs. Xavier / Arkansas vs. Auburn

Xavier beats Auburn.

I suspect we won’t need a tiebreaker for this one.

And there we go, folks. If I missed you or otherwise screwed up your entry — which, as we all know, is not just possible but probably likely, given how busy I am today — just let me know and I’ll get it fixed right away.

Thanks to each of you for participating. Thanks to our friends at Piper’s for playing along. And good luck to everyone … especially me.